I must be missing something... What would be the point of establishing an SSL connection to your TiVo within your own private network, unless you wants to "pause" a program from work.

Just curious,

Ivan

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I need the SSL connection to get the XML file for the Now playing list so that I can display it on my touch panel then be able to select it. The sort of fake the selection with IR commands. With the teleport function I can always get to NPL from anywhere.

WMCbrine, I looked into this the XML says whether it is a folder or a video file... so you just put an identifier as a folder... so then you query the folder XML after the initial NPL query which it gives a link to. that way you can sort folder and use an indexing system so you know what entry it is on the NPL. You would have to use the teleport command and possibly IR up command so you know you are at the first entry.

All this is good in talk. I have not even tried to write code for it because I am waiting until I can actually get to the XML directly from the crestron. This for my own home so I am not too concerned. I might just have to wait until crestron releases their next stage in the module so I can use it and see what all the direct telnet commands are.

Just had a thought. Anyone tried to get this working on a Chumby?? I always thought those things were pretty useless, but a Chumby with this python script actually makes some sense. It's wifi so no wires, it gets you on the LAN, and it has a touchscreen. If you could make the remote.py work with the Chumby touchscreen you'd have a LAN based remote sitting on the couch next to you.

WMCbrine, I looked into this the XML says whether it is a folder or a video file...

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Yeah, that's not the problem. The problem is that you don't know what state the TiVo's own view of the NPL is in -- folded or flat -- you can't determine it remotely, and you can't force it to a known state. So I'd be extremely reluctant to build anything that operated automatically on the NPL.

But if it's just for your own use, and you know the state, then I guess it doesn't matter. I almost never unfold the list here, or change the sort order, so I could assume those.

Yeah, that's not the problem. The problem is that you don't know what state the TiVo's own view of the NPL is in -- folded or flat -- you can't determine it remotely, and you can't force it to a known state. So I'd be extremely reluctant to build anything that operated automatically on the NPL.

But if it's just for your own use, and you know the state, then I guess it doesn't matter. I almost never unfold the list here, or change the sort order, so I could assume those.

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I've implemented this in the iPhone program. It is not ideal. The sorting/grouping options aren't a big deal. I'm sure I'm missing some specific sorting scenarios (a, an, the, lower case letters, etc.), but there are only four combinations of the sorting options. I don't know if people are changing these settings often (or ever), I know I don't.

The messy part is setting the wait times for the different commands. Once a screen has reached some point, it will queue channel, and up/down commands, but play and select don't get queued. Depending on what the TiVo is doing, or was recently doing, the load times for each screen can take a different amount of time. It is very difficult to recreate difficult scenarios.
(There are configuration options so anyone and everyone can try their hand at tuning the wait times. http://code.google.com/p/tivoremote/wiki/NowPlaying has information on the different settings.)

I don't think there was anything particularly tricky about this, but I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone has about implementing this in other languages.

is anybody experiencing his or her TiVo box crashing from using any of these tools?

I'm using both the python script and the iPhone tool. (Both are completely amazing as far as I'm concerned. The NowPlaying list displays on my phone, I select any show, and my TiVo magically starts it up. Amazing.)

But every once in a while, the TiVo just shuts down and starts up again. This has only started happening since using this new way into the TiVo.

is anybody experiencing his or her TiVo box crashing from using any of these tools?

I'm using both the python script and the iPhone tool. (Both are completely amazing as far as I'm concerned. The NowPlaying list displays on my phone, I select any show, and my TiVo magically starts it up. Amazing.)

But every once in a while, the TiVo just shuts down and starts up again. This has only started happening since using this new way into the TiVo.

Am I the only one?

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I heard someone was having a problem with the iPhone program messing up the video decoding. The person thought it had something to do with sending too many commands to the TiVo at once. I have since slowed down the frequency at which commands can be sent, but I haven't heard if it resolved the issue.

My first day of playing around with the telnet interface led to a TiVo restart. I don't know if it was some key sequence I sent (I was typing directly on the socket), or if there was something else involved. I haven't seen any problems since.
I may have been testing having multiple clients connecting to the TiVo at the same time when my crash occurred. Perhaps there is an issue with the TiVo handling multiple connections. (I think I remember the second connection evicting the first connection, which would be somewhat unusual socket behavior, I believe.)

My first day of playing around with the telnet interface led to a TiVo restart. I don't know if it was some key sequence I sent (I was typing directly on the socket), or if there was something else involved. I haven't seen any problems since.
I may have been testing having multiple clients connecting to the TiVo at the same time when my crash occurred. Perhaps there is an issue with the TiVo handling multiple connections. (I think I remember the second connection evicting the first connection, which would be somewhat unusual socket behavior, I believe.)

I'm interested if you find out anything more.

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Perhaps it is the telnet client's emulation, I tried using another telnet client and the tivo rebooted, so it was back to the plain telnet.

I've had a total of three crashes (one spontaneous reboot, two lockups that I had to manually reboot from) while developing. One of those I can probably blame on a bug -- not in any released version -- in the keyboard simulator that caused a neverending stream of commands. But the other two seemed to be during normal usage. The only thing that might be a factor was having multiple copies open simultaneously (i.e., multiple connections to port 31339). So, my advice is to avoid that; also, to minimize it rather than closing it and opening it again in a short time. I haven't had a crash since I adopted that policy.

But yeah, there's something a bit flaky on the TiVo side of this feature, I'm afraid.

Edit: I posted that before I read duckfin's response. Looks like we had similar experiences.

I don't know if anyone else is trying to implement Now Playing type functionality, but I noticed today that sending a "TELEPORT NOWPLAYING" will produce "LIVETV_READY" when the TiVo has finished loading the Now Playing screen. So, instead of waiting an arbitrary period of time after sending an "IRCODE NOWSHOWING" command, programmatically, you can determine when next to send a command, which makes TELEPORT much better for scripting purposes.

(I've tried fiddling around with other parameters for the TELEPORT command but couldn't find anything. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more options, perhaps even one to start playing a recorded program.)

Mostly off-topic, but since there's iPhone related TiVo development talk in here, I might as well pitch it...

I would LOVE to have an iPhone app that can interface with TiVoCentral to search and setup recordings. The TCO website itself absolutely sucks on the iPhone, and having somewhat of a thin client running here would be a HUGE thing for me.

Of course, if TiVo would just make an iPhone friendly version of that site, we wouldn't need this. But seeing that they can't even make a decent version of it for regular browsers, I'm not holding my breath.

Anyways, that's my wish. And thanks to those who've been working on this telnet control - really cool stuff!

Mostly off-topic, but since there's iPhone related TiVo development talk in here, I might as well pitch it...

I would LOVE to have an iPhone app that can interface with TiVoCentral to search and setup recordings. The TCO website itself absolutely sucks on the iPhone, and having somewhat of a thin client running here would be a HUGE thing for me.

Of course, if TiVo would just make an iPhone friendly version of that site, we wouldn't need this. But seeing that they can't even make a decent version of it for regular browsers, I'm not holding my breath.

Anyways, that's my wish. And thanks to those who've been working on this telnet control - really cool stuff!

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Maybe one of these other sites work better with an iPhone, they all have a TiVo Online Scheduling interface:
* MeeVee.com &#8211; Look for the TiVo icon while browsing.
* TVGuide.com &#8211; Select &#8216;Record with TiVo.&#8217;
* Yahoo.com &#8211; Look for &#8216;Record to TiVo&#8217; in TV listings.
* Zap2it.com &#8211; Select &#8216;Record to TiVo.&#8217;